Health Blog

Free depression screenings Thursday at three local sites

There’s help for emotional pain as I learned when writing What Sept. 11 Taught Us About Disasters and Mental Health. And sometimes, experts have told me, it doesn’t take a disaster — just winter blues — to tip us over to sadness and depression. But the first step to getting any kind of help is finding out if you need it. Three local sites in North Texas will offer free, anonymous screenings for depression and offer first-step help for those with symptoms as part of National Depression Screening Day Thursday, Oct. 11.

While the screenings are confidential, the good news is that increasingly, there’s less of a stigma attached to mental illness, according to a telephone poll of 1,021 American adults surveyed between Sept. 15 and 20 by Anderson Robbins Research. In fact, 2/3 of those surveyed believe depression can be successfully treated most of the time and that if a presidential candidate had sought treatment for depression, it would have no impact on their vote. Those who know people with depression are more likely than others to seek help themselves, (76%, compared to 66% of those who don’t know anyone with depression), and are more optimistic about the frequency with which depression can be successfully treated.

You can get a free screening at these locations on Thursday, Oct. 11:

University Behavioral Health of Denton
2026 W University Drive
Denton, TX 76201
(940) 320-8100
Screenings will be available from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.